U.S. Report Supports Doubts On Nevirapine
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Cape Argus (Cape Town)
December 15, 2004
Posted to the web December 15, 2004
Sheena Adams
The government said it had no immediate plans to discontinue using nevirapine in spite of an American report that questions the safety of the Aids drug.
Government spokesman Joel Netshitenzhe said he was not surprised by the questions about the drug's efficacy and said the Department of Health continued to look for alternatives.
"This news is not new to us at all. That's why the Department of Health is working with the relevant institutions to establish the facts and to find alternatives."
A task team was set up this year comprising the department, the Medical Research Council and the Medicines Control Council to look into the drug's safety and efficacy.
It emerged yesterday that American health officials suppressed warnings two years ago about some of nevirapine's serious side-effects.
Top US health officials under-reported severe reactions, including death, during a Ugandan study in 2002.
The National Institutes of Health in the US chose not to inform the White House of some of the findings weeks before President George Bush announced a $500 million plan to supply nevirapine to African countries.
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Dr Glenda Gray, director of the perinatal HIV research unit at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, said allegations that thousands of deaths went unreported in the Ugandan study were unfounded, but conceded that it seemed to have been conducted in a "sub-optimal" fashion.
The government has been a vocal critic of nevirapine and at the International Aids Conference in Thailand in July health minister Manto Tshabala-Msimang publicly questioned its efficacy.
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